However, Glais-Bizoin followed
Cremieux to Tours, where it had been arranged that the Government
Delegation should instal itself, and he was accompanied by Admiral
Fourichon, the Minister of Marine. On reaching the Loire region, the new
authorities found a few battalions of Mobile Guards, ill-armed and
ill-equipped, a battalion of sharpshooters previously brought from
Algeria, one or two batteries of artillery, and a cavalry division of four
regiments commanded by General Reyau. This division had been gathered
together in the final days of the Empire, and was to have been sent to
Mezieres, to assist MacMahon in his effort to succour Bazaine; but on
failing to get there, it had made just a few vain attempts to check the
Germans in their advance on Paris, and had then fallen back to the south
of the capital.
General Lefort's first task was to collect the necessary elements for an
additional army corps--the 15th--and he summoned to his assistance the
veteran General de la Motte-Rouge, previously a very capable officer, but
now almost a septuagenarian, whose particular fad it was to dye his hair,
and thereby endeavour to make himself look no more than fifty.
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